The hype is over and once again the Australia versus New Zealand battle has dominated a championships... the speculation about England's chances this year was justified as everybody within England knew that the standard of our play had improved, yet we were still one step behind. The test series and friendly matches proved that we are capable of upsetting the top two, it might just take a little longer for this to emerge as success in international competitions.
A special mention must go to Mavericks Amanda Newton (England Captain), Karen Atkinson (England Vice-Captain) and Louisa Brownfield who received glowing reports from the netball press. Well done on some hard fought matches. You will be able to see our England squad in action as Trans World Sports caught some of the action and this program is being shown on Wednesday 21st November on Sky Sports 3 at 8:00pm or early on the weekend on Channel 4.
As the final placings are being disected, retirement reports and scandalous stories are flying around the international netball community. England supporters are left proud of their players performances but have a firm belief that there is better to come...
Final placings at the 2007 New World Netball World Championships reported on their website 18/11/2007.
1. Australia
2. New Zealand
3. Jamaica
4. England
5. Malawi
6. South Africa
7. Cook Islands
8. Samoa
9. Fiji
10. Botswana
11. Trinidad & Tobago
12. Wales
13. Barbados
14. Scotland
15. Singapore
16. Malaysia
Losing by one to end in 4th place, England and Jamaica sit in the same order as last World Champs with Australia and New Zealand switching for the top spot. Wales will be a little disappointed as they climb by two places from 14 to 12 but know that they could have finished higher in the rankings and Malawi appears confidently from having no ranking last time to sitting in 5th place.
Although this might be a disappointing time for our national squad, the positive results over the last twelve months as a result of our regular SuperLeague high level competition (which is proving to be very popular on Sky Sports) surely means that given another four years we might be ready to really disrupt the Australia/New Zealand rivalry. Bring on the World Youth Champs and Commonwealth Games!
